Rescue services on Crete yesterday intensified the search for a 72-year-old Swiss tourist missing since Tuesday afternoon after going jogging in the southern resort of Palaiochora. The man, who had been staying at a local campsite with his wife and son, set off on a jog at about 6 p.m. on Tuesday and was reported missing after failing to return by nightfall. Dozens of locals joined the rescue effort, which was aided by helicopter, but there had been no sign of the man by late yesterday.

United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz is due to visit Skopje today and then travel on to Athens, via Thessaloniki, to resume talks aimed at breaking the Macedonian name deadlock. Commenting yesterday on a response by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to a letter from FYROM Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Greece’s Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said: “The general-secretary said the self-evident, namely that Mr Nimetz’s mandate is to discuss the name issue.” According to Greek diplomats, Washington has set an unofficial deadline for a name settlement two months from now.

The repeated blasts at the Markopoulo quarries east of Athens have resulted in the collapse of a prehistoric cave, the head of the Culture Ministry’s antiquities department Olga Kakavoyianni said yesterday. Supreme Court prosecutor Giorgos Sanidas ordered a preliminary investigation last week to establish whether quarrying is still taking place, despite court rulings prohibiting it. TV pictures showed several trucks carrying material from the quarries.

Police on Rhodes detained five people yesterday on drug charges after seizing 19 kilos of cannabis and dozens of hash trees in two separate incidents. Officers detained a 44-year-old Greek, believed to have carried 19 kilos of drugs from Athens and a 29-year-old Albanian who allegedly was to have collected the delivery. In a separate raid, Rhodes police confiscated 75 cannabis trees from a farm in the area of Pylona and arrested two men, aged 61 and 53, and a woman, aged 47.

Police in Parga, northwestern Greece, yesterday were questioning a foreign woman believed to have spent dozens of forged 100-euro notes in the area. Officers confiscated 33 forged 100-euro notes from the woman who is believed to have swindled eight local store owners with contraband currency.

Coast guard officers picked up 29 migrants and a suspected human trafficker on the Dodecanese islet of Farmakonisi yesterday. The illegal immigrants were stranded when the rubber dinghy in which they were sailing crashed into rocks off the islet. The migrants told the coast guard they had set sail from Turkey. The 19-year-old suspected smuggler was not identified.

A 19-year-old Greek soldier serving on Cyprus, who was found dead on the island on Tuesday, had suffered an acute heart attack, a coroner said yesterday. It was unclear whether Themistoklis Yiannakakis, from Thessaloniki, had a history of heart problems.